Changing Ways

by Comma Typer

Thorax

Sunset was upon the ocean once again, the sun’s sharp orange rays zooming through the sky in magnificent style. Around the water, more water. Some jumping fish popped out once in a while, but, other than that, it was pretty lonely for Smolder who kept flapping her wings, kept pushing herself to the limit with nobody to talk to. She often glanced to the side out of instinct—maybe a monster would come out of the ocean to eat her. But, sometimes, her otherwise innocent glances were met not with relief that she avoided becoming dinner but with disappointment that a certain hippogriff was not flying beside her.

In her mind, there she was, that bubbly Silverstream. She replayed the funny jokes and the unfunny puns in her head, almost hearing them. Of course, reality would not let her enjoy it for long because she saw the empty space beside her with her own eyes.

Silverstream was absent.

Smolder looked down on the orange-tinted sea, seeing her reflection matching the color scheme of her surroundings. She saw herself, a young and fierce dragon who could breathe fire—and again, the absence presented itself, for she could not see the reflection of that Silverstream who had breathed water but may or may not have used that ability as a weapon before.

She closed her eyes and sighed. “It was fun while it lasted, huh?” She raised her claws to the air, seeing them and their little details. “So what if they don’t like you back home? You’re my friend and I promise I’ll find you, even if it’s your dead body!”

She looked up, hoping to see land.

Except there was no land. Instead, she saw a flying creature approaching her.

Smolder narrowed her eyes and slightly slowed down her flight.

The creature neared. She saw the features, the shape of those wings. The outlines she saw were not that of feathers.

“A dr-dragon?!” Smolder shouted as this other dragon slowed down and neared her. “Wh-What a-are you doing here?”

The yellow dragon looked surprised at her, stopped and hovered in front of her. “I was gonna ask the same of...of you!” He coughed, punching his chest and shooting out a line of fire which disappeared in the water below. “What are you doing here, Smolder?”

Smolder shook her head. “Uh-uh. You first, Teocht!”

“Fine.” He drew in breath. “We’re the missing dragons Torch has been raging about. We wanted to save anyone who could make it to the shore, so we organized ourselves and took the trip.”

Smolder looked at him, and then to the space beside him. “Well? Where’s the survivors?”

“You didn’t see them?” Teocht asked, looking over her shoulder. “They started hours ago! They should be halfway there now.”

Smolder shrugged her shoulders. “I didn’t see anyone! What were they? Pegasi?”

“No. There was one hippogriff holding a baby; the rest were seaponies.”

“A hippogriff?!” Smolder yelled, hands on her head like one startled.

Teocht nodded but refrained from smiling. “Not the one you’re looking for, though. I know you like Silverstream and, really, she’s a good gal, but she’s not there. I asked around.”

Smolder gasped. “That means she’s...she’s still out there!” Her eyes darted everywhere including there. “What happened? Did Mount Aris survive? Where are the changelings?!”

“Didn’t get any word,” he said, raising his shoulders, “but it’s safe to say they’ve pretty much outnumbered the hippogriffs.”

Smolder shook her head, angry with a growl. “No way! How do you know?!”

The dragon sighed, tired out. “When we started, there were ten of us. Eight of us are now dead, I don’t know why Teine’s lagging behind, but...we’re the only ones who escaped ‘cause the changelings already have the entire shore.”

Smolder gasped again, then tried to look past him.

“You shouldn’t go there,” Teocht said in an authoritative manner. “It’s dangerous and—“

Smolder flew past him.

“Wait!” he yelled. “Don’t you realize what you’re doing?!”

“No!” Smolder yelled back, fleeing into the orange horizon.

---

Hours later, and it was already nighttime. The moon was in the sky along with its many stars, shining upon the ocean with their white and gleaming reflections on the water.

Smolder, sweating and panting though flapping her wings as hard as she could, caught sight of land past the pointed cliffs. She looked at the trees over there still standing.

“Huh.” Smolder squinted her eyes, affording a clearer view of the coast but seeing no one there.

The dragon alighted on the ground.

It took a few seconds for her to get her bearings, but once she did, she saw what was around her: a great number of hoofprints, several broken and collapsed trees, many scattered leaves and twigs around with stray fruit squashed, and, most importantly, a lone changeling slowly limping away with broken wings, crawling.

Smolder grunted and ran towards that one changeling.

He heard the footsteps, crawled faster.

And was picked up by the throat, now face-to-face with an angry Smolder.

The changeling shuddered. “Wh-Wh-What do y-y-y-you w-want?!”

“Where is Silverstream?!”

The changeling raised his forehooves in surrender. “I-I h-have no idea who y-you’re talking about—“

Smolder threw him down, wrecking his wings more.

“Agh! Please, have mercy on me! I don’t know who this ‘Silverstream’ is!”

Smolder kicked him on the head. “You’re a liar! You know where she is! Where do you have her?!”

Moaning in pain, the changeling glared at her with anguished eyes and hollow cheeks. “I’m not l-lying! I’m telling you, I’m n-not lying!”

Smolder kicked him on the head again, eliciting cries and groan from his throbbing head. “Why should I trust you?!”

He looked up to her, slowly raising his head.

Smolder could see the scars and bruises on his head. She noticed he only had one fang jutting from his mouth.

The changeling looked straight at her. “We failed.”

Smolder cocked her head to the left. “Failed at what?”

“Your flying, swimming friends…they won….”

She leaned closer. “You...lost?”

“Yes!” the changeling cried out, hissing at her. “Now, leave me alone! Or...if you could do me a favor...please throw me over there,” pointing at the fields ahead of him. “I’d be making lots of distance if you could—“

And his request was granted for he was picked up and thrown a long arc, all the while screaming his way up to the sky and down to the ground.

Smolder heard a faint thud!

Then, she put her hands on her hips, surveying the destruction around her. She strolled through the chaos, trampling on branches and walking around logs. She heard birds chirping about but they were not perched so high. Instead, she found them on the ground, on the logs. They did not seem to mind her, really.

Smolder kept strolling, taking in deep breaths of fresh air.

Then, the tumbling of a few branches.

She whirled around. “Who’s there?”

Smolder arched her brows as she walked towards the branches and one of the trees there still standing.

“You can’t hide from me!” Smolder called out, taking to flight and hovering closer to it. “You better come out now!”

Closer, closer to the tree as she felt another chilly breeze on her scales, gliding closer.

Then, right in front of her, the tree.

“Got you!”, then jumped to the other side.

And saw a shuddering pony the color of spring bud, bruised and scarred, eyes half-open and blackened, bangs all scruffy, and some teeth missing.

Smolder looked at him, keeping some distance herself. “Who are you?”

The pony coughed, then choked and hacked his way to more air.

Smolder stood there, waiting for the hurt stallion to speak. “Well?”

He rubbed his face, rubbing his eyes free from the pain but could not. Then, looking up at the dragon: “Smolder?”

The dragon took a step back. “I’ve never seen you before! How come you know my name?”

He parted his blue bangs. “I’ll let you know my name. I-I'm Sandbar.”

Smolder tilted her head to the side. “Right….”

Sandbar chuckled, shaking his head as he did so. “Why would you believe me? You probably think I’m a changeling just because I know your n-name…most famous dragon-hippogriff duo the world’s ever seen….”

Smolder tapped her chin. “I’ll give you that, but...what happened?”

Sandbar coughed again, rubbing his wounded and discolored chest. “The changelings...they...they got me a-and...” he trailed off. Shook his head. “What’s the use? Here.”

The pony glowed and he was gone, an injured changeling there instead lying on the trunk.

Smolder bared her teeth and punched her fists. “Couldn’t even go through with your story! You tricked me for a second, though, so good for you...but, you know what this means!”

This changeling looked up. “N-No, Smolder!”

Then, Smolder jumped back, surprised and flapping her wings. “Thorax?!”

He slowly nodded. Carrying a feeble voice: “Y-Yeah. It’s me….”

Smolder leaned down, picked up a limp leg. “What happened to you?”

A few seconds passed, Thorax looking over her shoulder and seeing more of the leveled forest. He retracted the leg. “I...I saved some creatures. Gave them enough time to...to e-escape.”

“What creatures?” Smolder asked, panicking as her voice quivered. “Is Silverstream OK?!”

Thorax looked at her eyes, confused. “She...she’s not with them, but I’ve never seen her captured….”

Smolder breathed a sigh of relief, wiping her forehead. “That’s good, but...what about you?”

Thorax coughed. “There were changelings going after them. I was disguised as a pony named Sandbar a-and I helped them...got them to the shore, the hippogriffs t-turned them all into s-seaponies, and got away. The changelings n-never noticed….”

Smolder slowly opened her mouth, realizing something. “Does that mean...you saw the dragons?”

Thorax nodded, slower than before. “Most of them got down, but...I kn-know one got out alive….”

Instead of saying anything, Smolder just sat down beside him, resting her back on the tree’s trunk with him.

She looked up at the night sky, seeing those stars twinkle in that calm, peaceful night.

Thorax coughed, this time with a painful groan.

The dragon looked at him, worry in her open mouth. “I’ll carry you over to Mount Aris. I was going there anyway to see if Silverstream’s alright.”

Thorax shook his head, waved his hoof about. “N-No...i-it’s alright, it’s alright….”

He slumped his head on the bark, staring blankly at the pretty sky.

“You don’t want to die here, do you?” Smolder said, patting him on the back for encouragement. “Stand up and let me help you!”

Thorax shoved the encouraging hand away, letting his own hoof fall lifeless. “Trust me, Smolder...I-I know I won’t be making it out of here a-alive.”

“But you could come back with us!” Smolder shouted, pointing to herself and then to the horizon towards Aris. “I don’t know what kind of medicine or bandages or something they got there, but they’re there! What’re they gonna say if I leave you out here?”

He smiled despite the bruises on his mouth. “Tell them I a-am OK with being h-here. I’m n-not gonna survive the trip a-anyway—“ coughed “—and...a-and—“

Blinked.

“N-Nevermind.”

And Thorax stopped.

Smolder looked at that dying changeling, noticing his breathing becoming weaker.

“A-Actually,” Thorax managed, voice all gruff, “there’s o-one thing I’d w-want you to do for me.”

Smolder raised a brow. “What is it?”

Thorax made a frail smile. “B-Bury me. Bury me deep so th-they won’t find me if th-they...if Chrysalis gets here. M-Make sure th-they won’t find my b-body,” and coughed, covering his mouth.

Smolder scanned the area around them, found a couple of flat spots here and there suitable for the job despite the forest’s litter lying around. “It’s gonna take me some time without a shovel, though.”

Thorax chuckled a bit. “I-I won’t be a-alive to complain.”

Smolder chuckled, too. “Heh.”

And the both of them sat, seeing the moon inch slowly towards the top of the sky.

Smolder smiled, looking at the moon like that. “You know what, Thorax? I’m OK with this. I mean, I don’t like you dying, but...it’s a little break from what’s been going on. I don’t have to worry about an invasion and I’m beginning to think things are looking bright for us.”

She turned to Thorax for a response.

Saw his closed eyes and that smile.

Her own smile vanished. “Oh.”

She stared upon the corpse sitting there. She raised his hoof and dropped it, seeing it truly fall limp and hanging off his shoulder.

“You were a good changeling, Thorax." She patted him on the back.

Smolder looked around, remembering those flat spots.

“Now, where to?”

The dragon picked up the corpse and walked her way to the closest flat spot. She dropped the corpse, cleared the debris of leaves and branches and logs covering it up, and began to dig.

Comments

[TheMysteryMuffin]

And so, we've reached the end... ...of yet another great story! A pleasant read!

[Comma Typer]

9043268
At least it was good for you. Personally, I think this story is akin to low-hanging fruit, but, as they say, sometimes a creative's harshest critic is himself, so I don't know.

Thank you for reading.

[TheMysteryMuffin]

9043276
Hey, don't beat yourself down. That's what happened to me once when I wrote Twilight Turns Into a Puppy. I didn't like the fic, but other users did. Their motivation has helped me to rewrite it someday, perhaps after my second Armada story. Believe in yourself. God bless.

[MagicS]

I enjoyed this story. I'll be honest and say that I enjoyed "A War" much more and thought it was better but I quite liked this too. Strangely despite this focusing on far less characters and less individual stories it felt like A War had a much tighter narrative while this was more disjointed. Still, I was drawn in and invested the whole way through, I enjoy your story style and am very much looking forward to any future stories you might write like this one and A War.

[Comma Typer]

9043401
I wouldn't call it beating myself down, but that's how I roll. When you see your own fics as lackluster and always in need of improvement no matter what the ratings say, you'll be more likely to see the mistakes and correct them.

That aside, thanks for your encouragement.

9043648
There's a reason why A War is like that. There, the P.O.V. usually changes to a character either nearby or being talked/thought about; I only did "hard" switches, so to speak, when I found no other way to get to the next part of the story without sounding contrived. Here in Changing Ways, I mellowed down and changed P.O.V.'s casually.

Really, the key to holding loads of characters together is by stringing them along one string. That's what happened in A War. This story had multiple strings that sometimes overlapped, but, overall, it looks clunky compared to A War. I hope I'll use the former P.O.V. style more often, really.

Anyway, thank you for your time.

[fanreader999999]

Treadmill.

[Comma Typer]

9048655
What do you mean by that?